“Right,” Aiden agreed. “And you guys know him.”

  “Know of him,” Mountain corrected. “I’ve never had any direct dealings with him.” He looked over at his cousin. “You?”

  She shook her head. “No. And you know Dad always told us to stay away from them.”

  “Why is that?” Aiden asked them.

  “Because he’s bad news,” Mountain said. “But you know? There’s an awful lot of talk about gangs, drugs, and money laundering through the casinos, etcetera. Toby’s father would say that none of that ever happens, but I’m not so sure, and he would certainly be looking to keep his own job, which pays very well.”

  She snorted at that. “As you well know, it’s about the only thing that matters to my parents.”

  “What about the big fancy house?” Mountain asked.

  “That would be the other thing that matters to my parents. And it is high-end, worth millions,” she noted, “but it won’t help me any. They don’t share. Remember?” At that, Aiden looked at her in surprise. She shrugged. “My dad was always of the opinion that, if you wanted anything in life, you needed to work for it yourself.”

  “Well, I get that,” Aiden agreed, “but being charged for murder hardly compares to something you can easily handle on your own.”

  “He would say that I got into hot water all on my own. Then I can get out of it on my own.” She looked over at Mountain. “Wouldn’t he?”

  Mountain nodded. “Yeah. That’s definitely the way he looks at life.”

  Toby asked him, “So, why did you try to make it look like he was the one paying the attorney’s bill for this?”

  He sighed. “Because I didn’t think you would allow me to help.”

  “I’m not a fool.”

  “Yeah, that’s true,” he noted. “How did you know?”

  “I repeat. I’m also not a fool.” She raised her eyebrow at him.

  He smiled. “Nope, that you definitely aren’t.” He looked back over at Aiden. “Her father won’t be easy.”

  “Even though you’re family?”

  “Definitely being family, we’ll be told to butt out and to let the law do their job.”

  “Even when the law isn’t working?”

  “He’ll say that she got herself into trouble and that she needs to get herself out of it.”

  “Wow. I hate him already,” Aiden muttered. At her frown, he shrugged. “Not everybody has to be an asshole. Some of them just choose to be.”

  She snickered at that. “That’s my family. It’s all about how well they can make a living off of Vegas before they retire.”

  “And do you expect them to retire?”

  “One day,” she said, “at least maybe. I really don’t know whether they’ll manage it or not.”

  “Which is an interesting comment,” Aiden noted. “Do you really see them as staying here for the rest of their lives?”

  “I don’t know,” she murmured. “My father said that he would never stay in Vegas forever, but you know that—with that kind of paycheck, with that kind of notoriety, with that kind of influence—it’s hard to walk away from.”

  Aiden nodded. “I can see that, but it’s also a little disconcerting if we don’t really believe that he’ll be there to help. The next question is, Will he be there to hurt?”

  “Maybe,” she said calmly. “And I think if my lovely father-in-law,” she added, sending him a mocking look at the term, “were to push dear old Dad’s buttons, he might very well buckle.”

  “And again very interesting,” Aiden noted, with a frown.

  “They’re all shits,” Mountain confirmed, “but we don’t get to pick and choose our family. We get to pick and choose what we do in terms of a relationship with them, but that’s it.”

  “And your relationship is?” Aiden asked his buddy.

  “They’re shits,” he repeated cheerfully. “The only one worth anything is her,” he said, with a nod to Toby.

  She smiled. “I’m glad you said that,” she added in a rueful tone.

  “Sometimes I wonder if that’s even fair. You’re not your father. You’re not your mother,” he reminded her.

  “I know,” she agreed, “but it’s kind of hard growing up with that kind of attitude from them.”

  “And did I hear you say you had a sister?” Aiden asked her.

  She nodded slowly. “Yes, I do.”

  “And?”

  “And what?” she replied. “She’s married to a gambler.”

  “Oh.” Aiden stared at her for a long moment.

  “Yep, but they don’t live here. And that’s a good thing. He made big money, and he took off with her.”

  “Also interesting. And how did your family handle that?”

  “They were pissed. What do you expect? She wasn’t supposed to marry a gambler—that’s just a downward path of no return, as far as my dad is concerned.”

  “Right. And, of course, he knows best.”

  “He’d like to think so,” she replied, with a bright smile.

  “Do you have any contact with her?”

  “Nope, not at all,” she said. “And I highly suspect that I won’t for the rest of my life either.”

  Aiden didn’t even know what to think about that, as they arrived home once more. That was so foreign to him and to his concept of family life; it was just a very strange scenario. Mountain never talked about his family, and the fact that this was his extended family just made it that much more interesting to Aiden. “Okay, in that case, I guess there’s no point in interviewing your dad.”

  “Nope. And he wouldn’t thank you for it either. And, if you walk into his casino and try to grill him, you’ll get your butt kicked out on the street.”

  He looked over at Mountain.

  Mountain nodded. “Believe her.”

  “Well, we’re not getting anywhere fast then,” Aiden replied in frustration.

  She shrugged. “Yeah, we know that, but you also just got here.”

  He stared at her. “I don’t care if I just got here or not. As far as I’m concerned, I should already have something. And yet I’m still tracking down leads.”

  She shook her head. “Whatever. I’m heading up to bed.” And, with that, she turned and climbed the stairs.

  He watched her leave and then faced Mountain.

  “I’ll crash too.” Mountain added, “You’re on first watch.”

  He nodded. “Are we really expecting some danger to her? Seems she’s the fall guy in all this mess.”

  “No, not at all,” Mountain said. “But, if you’ll be up anyway, keep an eye on her.”

  “Will do,” he murmured.

  And, with that, Mountain walked over to the long couch, stretched out, and closed his eyes.

  Really, it wasn’t a bad idea to keep watch. Aiden was still kind of wired from all the information floating in his brain and so would be up for hours anyway. What they had really was a couple different scenarios, most of which didn’t even involve Toby. Her husband was murdered, but so were now five other men, all in similar circumstances, and one nasty-ass father-in-law was trying to make Toby’s life difficult. Yet no evidence implicated her as the murderer of her husband, much less all six guys. And that was the thing.

  How dare the cops charge her when they couldn’t make a case? But, of course, they could drop the charges at any time. However, it’s still messing up her life. Was that their plan? It was working. Aiden sent Corbin a text, asking for any forensic information on the murder files because, as far as he saw from the information he had been sent, there wasn’t any.

  Corbin phoned him. “It’s still in forensics.”

  “Of course. That’s why nothing is in the file. Fingerprints? Tox-screens?”

  “Same thing,” Corbin stated. “Nothing is back. Nothing is conclusive. Nothing ties her to these murders,” he said.

  “Just motive.”

  “But, if that’s all there is, there’s an awful lot of motive for other people to kill all these men too. They were all carrying a substantial amount of cash, confirmed in just hours for some, before their bodies were found.”

  “Even her husband?” Aiden frowned at that and checked the file.

  “Inconclusive,” Corbin stated.

  Since she’d already gone up to bed, Aiden couldn’t ask her, and would she even know?

  “According to the police, he was in the casino that evening,” Corbin read from the file.

  “But everybody here in Vegas is in the casinos in the evenings,” he replied. “That’s like the local pastime, basically the whole purpose for Vegas.”

  “For the diehards, yes, but not necessarily for the working folk in Vegas, who just are trying to pay their bills and keep a roof over their head. Now Moscow? He was a gambler. His father was a casino owner, so Moscow was raised in that environment. I don’t see that he’ll be very much different from other addicted gamblers.”

  “Maybe the murderer didn’t get as much money from Moscow?” Aiden mused out loud, “but chances are that he was still carrying a substantial amount.”

  “That’s likely.”

  “And why would he want to carry that kind of cash?” Aiden muttered. But, of course, that just made it easier and faster to cash out—not like when requesting a cashier’s check. So, if you wanted actual cash, that led to less red tape and time, which also kept a lot of things quiet and under the table, so his gambling life just kept on going.

  At that thought, Aiden asked Corbin for the street cameras on the casino strip to see what he could find on the night that her husband died. When Aiden got a copy of that, he headed to his laptop and brought up the feed. He watched as Moscow stepped out of the casino and headed down the strip.

  Multiple cameras later, Aiden picked up Moscow, going down several more blocks. And then he jerked his head to the right, and a smile broke out across his face, and he disappeared from sight. Aiden checked the location and noted it was the alley where he was killed. Someone had called out to him. Someone who obviously knew Moscow. That wouldn’t necessarily help Toby’s argument either because she would have been somebody that Moscow would have immediately gone to.

  Which was also a very strange scenario. Their whole relationship and subsequent marriage was strange. But the fact that Moscow had agreed to Toby’s marriage rules said a lot about the strange setup. Yet Aiden was certain, had Moscow lived, he never would have abided by Toby’s rules. From what Aiden knew of Moscow so far, that man had his own plans to set into motion.

  Aiden looked down at his phone. “I need Moscow’s address.” And when he found that in the police report, Aiden looked over at Mountain, who was lying there, wide awake. “You okay if I go take a look at her ex’s apartment?”

  “Yeah. You want me to come?”

  “We can’t,” Aiden said. “We can’t leave her unprotected, without an alibi.”

  Mountain frowned at that and nodded. “If you see anything, you call me.”

  “Will do,” Aiden replied.

  Chapter 6

  Toby heard a door open and then murmured voices. She immediately got up, went down to the living room, and only found Mountain. “Hey. What’s going on?”

  “Aiden’s going over to Moscow’s place,” Mountain told her. “Aiden tracked Moscow on the street cams, all the way from your casino to the alleyway, where the cops found Moscow’s blood,” telling her what they’d seen on Moscow’s clip.

  She frowned. “Which just makes it sound like it’s me.”

  “And yet why would you be in the alleyway?”

  “Well, according to the cops,” she quipped, “to kill him obviously.”

  He smiled gently. “And yet you didn’t, and we know that.”

  “Well, I’m glad you do,” she said on a sigh, “because I’m not sure that very many other people will.”

  “Anyway, we also have the fact that several other people were killed in alleyways,” he added, “so not to worry.”

  “And what about me? We all could have gone to Moscow’s apartment together.”

  He looked at her. “Do you have keys?”

  She shrugged. “He keeps one outside on the porch.”

  “Whereabouts?” he asked. “I’ll text it to Aiden.”

  She gave him the location, and he quickly fired off a text, while she waited. “I’d rather have gone.”

  “Well, if we need to go back, we all will,” Mountain noted. “Right now, he just wanted to get a general lay of the land.”

  “Yet Moscow wasn’t killed there.”

  “Doesn’t mean anything. If Moscow was involved in any strange deals or something wonky was going on, Aiden’ll find it.”

  “Maybe,” she murmured. “Doesn’t mean it’ll do me a damn bit of good though.”

  He frowned at her. “Hey, stay strong.”

  “I am,” she snapped. “Seems like all I’ve ever been.”

  “No, and you’re right,” he agreed. “I’m sorry. I should have been there for you when Moscow started to get really abusive.”

  She shrugged. “You were dealing with your own problems. We just basically expected the other to be there, and we couldn’t. It’s not a big deal, and I am really happy to see you now.”

  He grinned. “Me too, seems like a long time.”

  “Too long,” she muttered. She then groaned, closed her eyes, and asked, “How long will Aiden be out there?”

  “Not long,” Moscow guessed, “maybe an hour.”

  She plunked herself on a nearby chair and said, “So, tell me about him.”

  “What do you want to know?” he asked, but she felt the interest in his gaze.

  She flushed, then closed her eyes. “He’s interesting.”

  “Oh, that kind of interesting, huh?”

  She opened her eyes and glared at her cousin.

  Mountain nodded. “Aiden’s honest, honorable, and he’d never lie, cheat, or steal. He has fought for his country more than most people would ever find out about,” he added. “And I trust him—I trust him with my back, your back, and anybody in my team. I’m not sure what else I can tell you.”

  She studied him for a long moment. “That says an awful lot.”

  “It does. He’s a good guy,” Mountain declared. “I wouldn’t be at all upset if the two of you hooked up.”

  “Well, I don’t know about that,” she said. “He’s very focused on his job.”

  “And yet he expected to already have made some progress by now,” Mountain noted, with a wry look.

  “And you?”

  “Anything in Vegas becomes very twisted, once you factor in the money and the power angles. It all corrupts,” Mountain stated. “So, we’ll do the best we can, as fast as we can, but I don’t guarantee that the time frame here will ever be anything that is workable.”

  “It never is, is it?” she said, rolling her neck.

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m okay,” she murmured. “It just sucks.”

  “And that it does,” he agreed, with a nod. “But that doesn’t mean that it’ll always suck,” he added. “Right now, things are tough. But we will get to the bottom of this.”

  “Now that I have you in my corner, yeah,” she admitted. “When I got up this morning, I wasn’t sure that it was even worth getting out of bed. The cops have been on my case for a long time, driving me crazy, especially over the last couple weeks, and it doesn’t seem fair.”

  “Nope. But a long time really isn’t a long time when it comes to this kind of stuff. Moscow has only been dead for two weeks.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, two weeks. It seems like a lifetime.”

  “But it should be a good life now. He made your life a living hell.”

  She nodded. Just then her phone rang. She looked down at it winced.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s Michelle, Moscow’s sister.” She answered it. “Michelle, what’s wrong?” The sounds of her crying on the other end could be heard by her and Mountain as well. Toby slumped a little bit deeper into her chair. “I’m sorry you’re having bad dreams,” she said. “Remember. He’s dead. I promise you that he’s dead. … Yes, I know it for sure. He’s not coming back to harm you.” She pinched the bridge of her nose, wishing she had some way to get through to Michelle that her brother was dead and gone and could no longer hurt her.

  Only after she finally calmed down Michelle and got off the phone did she note how intently Mountain stared at her.

  “Hey”—she shrugged—“that’s the kind of stuff that Michelle’s been doing for a very long time.”

  “Moscow really was a bastard to her, wasn’t he?”

  She nodded. “To both of us,” she said, rubbing her arms.

  “Did he beat you up more than the one time?”

  She gave him a ghost of a smile. “When you’re the one getting beaten, it seems like it’s forever, and then you try to justify it, or you try to find a way to explain it or to even forget it,” she explained. “In my case, I never could. There was just no justification for what he did, and I was terrified of him before that even happened. All the beating did was reinforce the idea that I needed to get the hell away from him.”

  “And yet when he applied pressure, you buckled.”

  She gave him a sad look. “You don’t deal with Michelle on a regular basis. And there’s just no helping her sometimes,” she murmured. “Even though I tried so very hard for so long, sometimes you just can’t get through to her.”

  “I’m sorry to know that you took that kind of beating because of his sister.”

  “And Moscow knew it and knew that I would do anything to try and protect Michelle. And even now that she’s safe, it’s not the same thing for her. She’s still caught in this loop of terror.”

  He nodded slowly. “I’m so sorry for that. And you have the patience of a saint.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t really. It’s just when you’ve not had anybody in your corner and when nobody wants to believe you, it’s hard. And I didn’t really think that I would have that experience. Yet, once she started having all these problems, and I tried to get somebody to help us, there was nobody,” she murmured. “Nobody gave a shit, and, once the authorities did their investigation,” she said, with an eye roll, “there was nothing any of us could do to really help Michelle. Moscow was already so entrenched into her mind that, even though he’s long gone now, his torture still remains.”